A Whisper
by earthlyXangel
Summary: The only connection that Zero has left to her is a tenuous electrical signal once a week. Even if she doesn't answer. Even if he barely knows what to say. Even if it's just for a few minutes. Nevertheless, it keeps him holding on... [Zeki][AU]


"Hello?"

The line scratched like steel wool through the phone speaker. A soft exhalation. Her presence thrummed venomously over the connection, embedding itself in his eardrum. Yet there was no answer.

"...Hello? Yuki?"

Silence advanced, spreading thinly across the wires, dissipating into static. The static betrayed none of its secrets, did not tell him what expression she was wearing, where she was standing, how she was feeling. He leaned his forehead against the cool touch of the window and exhaled slowly, watching his breath murk the clarity of the glass in a circular cloud. That glass was like Yuki; once transparent, yet now fogged with confusion and doubt.

The line crackled. She was still there.

"Wherever you are... If you need anything, I'll be there."

No matter where she was, he always felt her whispering against his skin like gossamer...even when he wanted nothing more than to forget. She sung through his veins and through his dreams like arsenic. His footsteps snagged on her shadow, and there were times when the wind cruelly whispered her words of love in his ear. No matter how he struggled, the unquenchable thirst conflagrated his throat, waking him in the middle of the night and shrieking its raw need through his nerves. His body craved her like oxygen. Yet she was a phantom haunting the phone line, incorporeal and devastating.

_Stay with me. Say you love me, before I turn to ash._

The recollection of those words lanced through his heart. His eyes squeezed shut, tightening the grip the memory exerted across his chest until he trembled. Before, he had been a fool to reject her. He had driven her away, driven her to this miserable dead-end. Now, was he a fool to pursue this twisted love? He could no longer recall the glimmer of sunlight and summer breezes in her eyes or in her voice. Instead, she was encumbered by the burden of decisions she hadn't wanted to make. Hadn't she already told him it was impossible, that she wasn't ready to love anyone?

There was a crackle like wind through the speaker. She was still there, hanging on to the tenuous thread of that electrical connection. The mere knowledge of her presence held him captive. He should be angry, should be broken, should be some remnant of what he had been before, when hatred had consumed his every waking thought. And yet, as though he had shed his skin, not a molecule of that hatred remained. Only Yuki remained. Untouchable, unobtainable... Even a single word from her would have inebriated him with the melody, with the taste of her voice.

_There's another heartbeat...inside you..._

It wasn't his. Wasn't hers. Wasn't theirs. It was a pureblood, one of the very creatures he had sworn to loathe and to hunt. It was a heartbeat engendered from the one man Zero despised more than anyone or anything. Even Shizuka. And yet... He didn't consider rejecting it, or her, for even one second. It was him, after all, who had pushed her to that limit, who had effectively shoved her off the ledge and left her falling, helpless and alone, for so long. If that tiny heartbeat was the consequence for his negligence...so be it. It would still be partly hers, and how could he do anything but love something that was hers?

As it did every Saturday, the call was coming to a close. He spoke to the empty buzz of electricity, to the copper wires and to her absence. She, in turn, listened to his quiet sentences and then hung up when he bid her goodnight. Then he passed another week, patiently waiting once more for that vague, fruitless silence that marked the scant time they shared every weekend. He passed another week scratching his throat and reminiscing about her once-carefree smile. He would wait for her, wait for weeks and years and millennium. One day he believed she would return. One day, he would hold her in the circle of his arms again and finally be permitted to mend the wounds he had callously inflicted on her innocent heart.

"I'll talk to you soon." He could no longer see out of the window. It was grey and opaque, and he knew he could shift his view and look through the glass once again, but he stubbornly stayed where he was. He wasn't going anywhere. "...Bye." He set the phone back on the hook and sighed. Until next Saturday, then...

On the other end of that thunderous silence, he hadn't heard the soundless movement of lips shaping the syllables of his name.

* * *

**AN**: Hey everyone! I'm not dead! Sorry to keep you waiting. This was just a little something I cooked up mostly so that you know I haven't vanished. Plus I had some different things I wanted to share.

1\. A Tale of Blood and Ire: I have not given up or abandoned this story. I was just very disappointed by the new season of GOT and I also wanted to wait for the new book for inspiration. Seeing as it won't come out for forever, I'm going to try to write some more chapters anyway. I know I promised to continue months ago. I'm so, so sorry and I hope you can forgive me. I have a bad habit of dropping stories and later coming back to them...

2\. The Love That Remains: I'm honestly considering taking it down. If you would like me to save it, please lemme know.

3\. In other news, I have 2 new stories I'm working on. One is with VK and the other with Fruit's Basket. Are you interested in a Fruit's Basket fic? If so I will probably post it later. If not, I'll likely make a new account for non-VK things.

4\. VK in general: Honestly, I'm getting burnt out. Hino has killed the story so much for me... I'm so sorry. I plan to finish Blood and Ire and as I said, I have a new story in the works, but I don't think I'll be able to write much more than that with VK. It's so depressing for me rn with all that Hino has done. If you like the idea of Fruit's Basket, I think that's something I can do. Apart from that, I'm just waiting to stumble onto another manga/anime I feel like writing about.

Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me and supported me. Please let me know your thoughts. They are very important to me! -heart-


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